ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Of This Earth is a compilation of music Bill Taylor wrote between 1982 and 2011. It features solo piano works influenced by classical, jazz, rock, and Broadway. Grammy Award winning reed player Paul McCandless is heard on 3 of the cuts. He described one of the pieces as what Claude Debussy would have done with jazz. Some of the vocal pieces have been compared with Sondheim. Bill sees elements of Brahms, Prokofiev, Bach, and many other classical composers, as well as acoustic pianists such as Liz Story and George Winston in many of the solo piano pieces. They are largely written, with some improvisations added in. Many describe the music as relaxed but not boring, full of complex harmonies while not assaulting the ear with dissonance. Melody is prominent.

A number of the songs are influenced by the natural world: rivers, oceans, forests, Beluga whales. Others are connected with love, connection, spirituality or world issues.